Bêche-de-mer

Bêche-de-mer, plural Bêche-de-mer, or Bêches-de-mer, also called Trepang, boiled, dried, and smoked flesh of sea cucumbers (phylum Echinodermata) used to make soups. Most bêche-de-mer comes from the southwestern Pacific, where the animals (any of a dozen species of the genera Holothuria, Stichopus, and Thelonota) are obtained on coral reefs. Bêche-de-mer is consumed chiefly in China.

Bêche-de-mer, or Beach-la-Mar, is a pidgin English term used in New Guinea and nearby islands, where the trepang trade has long been important. The term Bêche-de-Mer has also come to designate the pidgin English language spoken in these regions.

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any of 1,200 species of marine invertebrates that constitute a class within the phylum Echinodermata. The soft cylindrical body, 2 to 200 cm (about 0.75 inch to 6.5 feet) long and 1 to 20 cm (0.4–8 inches) thick, is usually a dull, dark colour and often warty, thus resembling a cucumber. The...

Some of the larger species of tropical sea cucumbers, known commercially as trepang or bêche-de-mer, are dried and used in soups, particularly in Asia. Raw or cooked mature sex organs, or gonads, of sea urchins are regarded as a delicacy in some parts of the world, including parts of Europe, the Mediterranean region, Japan, and Chile. Some tropical holothurians produce a toxin, known as...

...commercial stands of sandalwood were depleted, but by the 1820s traders were again visiting the islands to trade for edible varieties of sea cucumber, the marine invertebrate also known as bêche-de-mer or trepang. Whereas most of the sandalwood had been cut by gangs of foreigners, the bêche-de-mer harvest involved large numbers of Fijians in gathering, cleaning, and drying...